Writing Post #1-Rough Draft

I have always been a strong believer that a child’s greatest adventure is discovering everything that this world has to offer, and as I stood before those great doors painted with bright greens and reds and blues, I realized that this place could be one of the greatest discoveries for any adventurous child. “The Children’s Museum,” stated the door very bluntly with a cursive font that curled and twisted to suggest that the mood of this place was much more relaxed than the door of a business with a Times New Roman entrance. The moment I walk in, I’m instantly greeted with the smiling face of a young woman working behind the red, blue, and yellow ticket counter. She seemed very nice and caring but a little bored with just sitting all day. As I looked around the towering hall I thought to myself, “Wow! You can’t put a price on how many memories a child could make here!” At that moment the young woman stated shortly, “Six dollars please.” I was wrong, I guess you can put a price on it.
Once I passed the primary colored counter, I was suddenly overwhelmed of all the options and adventures. I realized that if I was even stunned with the opportunities of this place, imagine how the children would feel. The three story building was packed floor to ceiling with varying opportunities for each of the kids to explore. The children had the option to explore space, fly a hot air balloon, become a newscaster, and live in a tree house all in one day. First, I sat myself by what I remembered as one of my favorite attractions when I was younger, the prairie dog exhibit. Here, the children were able to crawl into a series of tunnels that intertwine together, much like a prairie dog town. I watched as children would eagerly crawl in one side, vanish for a few moments and then suddenly reappear on the complete opposite side of the mound, smiling from ear to ear. As I watched and noticed many different children popping their small heads out of holes and imitating Timon from The Lion King, I realized that I wasn’t just seeing the same few smiling faces over and over again, they were each different kids. At this point I wondered to myself, how many children did those tunnels even hold? The children became more and more ecstatic every time they popped their head up and shouted “SURPRISE” to wherever their otherwise occupied parents were sitting. After awhile, I started watching the parents more than the kids. Many of the mothers were sitting together and chatting about the latest thing their child did or whatever the newest drama on the soaps but one father in particular caught my eye. He was sitting alone staring at his little girl as she sprinted into the tubes like all the other children, almost tripping, and before she disappeared he shouted to her, “Anna, be careful!” but she just waved him off. As he sat down, I realized that he had given the warning more as a comfort for himself than her. During the time she wound about the tubes, he never took his eyes off of the exit I’m assuming he was expecting her to come out of. After seconds turned into minutes, the father scooted farther forward on his chair. A few minutes longer he seemed like he couldn’t take it any more and he stood up. Not wanting to be too hovering, he took a lap around the mound. After still not being able to see her, I saw a flash a panic cross over his concerned face and right as he opened his mouth to call her she popped out the opposite side. “Daddy!” she squeaked, “There are so many tunnels! It’s so cool!” And with a sigh of relief the father grabs her by the hand and says, “It sounds like fun, but let’s see what else there is.” I laughed to myself and realized that this was his way of ensuring that she didn’t vanish into the tubes once more and scare him like that all over again. As I watched the little girl, Anna, skip away in her princess Velcro shoes and twirl her already curly hair, I decided it was time for me to move on as well.
But again, I struggled with the problem of the unlimited choices. The children had the option to temporarily become almost any profession they wanted, with the exception of pimp and drug dealer of course. I strolled over to the grocery store section and watched while a small girl in a plaid dress and pigtails cleared every item off of the pretend produce self and packed it into her midget-sized cart. She scooted her way past a young boy who seemed to be comparing two pieces of plastic meat much like I’m sure he saw his mother do before. The children were so engrossed with the hollow food that I’m not sure they didn’t forget it was all make believe. At one point, another little girl dropped a neon yellow banana to the ground and promptly picked it up, handed it to a volunteer, and stated, “This food was on the ground. It’s too dirty to sell now.” I had to stifle my laugh to make sure I didn’t discourage the small girl’s obviously serious statement and she continued on her merry way. I then stood next to the volunteer and inquired if the children always took these modules this seriously and she smiled and said yes, all the time. As a volunteer scanned the food for the pigtailed girl, she made small talk about the weather and other “grown-up” things. After she bagged her fake food into little plastic bags she pushed the cart about five feet out of the store. Once she was out of the store and back into the walkway, she stopped and turned to volunteer and said, “What do I do with this now?” Then it was back to reality. She wasn’t really a grown-up going grocery shopping for an insane amount of vegetables; she was just a little girl on a big adventure.
As I kept on touring the museum, I passed a pizza bakery where a boy stopped making the messy pepperoni pizza to pick his nose, a police car where the small boy was informing the other car that they were going a “bazillion miles per hour,” and a veterinarian where if that stuffed dog were real, PETA would definitely make sure the little boy lost his veterinary license for what he was doing to it. Each of these tiny rooms offered a new discovery for the children. Each of these tiny rooms was just another adventure. It was amazing to me how excited these kids were just for the future. Throughout the whole time I was there, I never saw a crying face. I did however, see children with the freedom to paint each other’s face instead of letting a grown-up do it, children telling their parents all the dreams they had for when they grow up, and children taking the time from a somewhat hectic world to create their own adventure and to just stop and discover.